The first European to visit the New York Bay area was Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian navigator in the service of France, who landed here in 1524. Henry Hudson, whose expedition sailed under the Dutch flag, explored the Hudson River in 1609, and in 1613 Adriaen Block, also sailing for the Dutch, was forced to winter on Manhattan Island after his boat caught fire.

Colonial period

In 1624 the Dutch West India Co. established the colony of New Netherland (later New York); a Dutch trading post, called New Amsterdam, was established on Manhattan's southern tip in 1625; but a permanent settlement was not established until the following year. During the mid-17th century, further colonization of Manhattan Island took place, and other settlements were begun in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. In 1664 Peter Stuyvesant, then governor, surrendered the colony to the English. It was retaken by the Dutch a few years later but was finally ceded to the English in 1674 by the Treaty of Westminster.

The settlement, now renamed New York, grew, favored by its sheltered harbor. The impetus to the city's growth was mercantile, with coastwise, riverine, and oceanic trade all contributing. New York played an important role in events leading to the American Revolution; in 1765 the Stamp Act Congress was held in the city. After the Battle of Long Island (1776), New York was occupied by British troops until the end of the Revolution. The American Congress met in New York in 1785-90, and George Washington was inaugurated as the first U.S. president here in 1789.

Growth, consolidation, and reform

The community continued to grow, but its great expansion occurred after the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825. The canal opened the great markets of the west, and New York became a major center of commodity exchange, banking, marine insurance, and manufacturing. Emigrants, particularly from Germany and Ireland, began to arrive in large numbers. From the mid-19th century until well into the 20th century, the city government was under control of a Democratic party machine, known as the Tammany Society. By the late 19th century the population was swelled by emigrants from southern and eastern Europe as well as from China. Growth was further enhanced by the great age of bridge construction that was initiated by the achievement of John A. Roebling and Washington A. Roebling (1837-1926): the beautiful, wire-enlaced Brooklyn Bridge (1883). Other bridges soon followed, setting the stage for the consolidation that, in 1898, created the five-borough city. In 1904 construction of the interborough subway systems was begun. This complex public transportation network integrated the boroughs into the pattern recognizable today.

Evidence of municipal corruption uncovered by a state investigating committee in 1932 led to the abrupt resignation of Mayor Jimmy Walker and paved the way for the election in 1933 of a colorful and popular reformer, Fiorello H. La Guardia, who served three 4-year terms. In the period during and after World War II, the city received numerous black migrants, largely from the southern states. Emigration from Puerto Rico and from other parts of the Caribbean and Latin America became important by the 1950s.

From Lindsay to Giuliani

Under a new charter, effective Jan. 1, 1963, city government was dominated by the Board of Estimate, which included the borough presidents, the comptroller, and the city council president in addition to the mayor. The reform coalition that had backed La Guardia, including Republicans and progressives, reassembled in 1965 to elect John V. Lindsay as mayor. Lindsay won reelection to a second term in 1969, but by the time he left office, the city was in dire financial straits. The city moved to stabilize its financial situation in the mid-1970s, when special financial entities (such as the Municipal Assistance Corporation) were created in order to keep the city from defaulting on its loans. The financial picture improved in the late 1970s and '80s, during the mayoralty of Edward I. Koch (1924– ), a Democrat, who succeeded in controlling outlays for city services.

In March 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Board of Estimate unconstitutional because it gave disproportionate weight to the less populous boroughs. In November voters approved a revised charter eliminating the board and reassigning its powers to the mayor, the city planning commission, and an expanded city council. At the same time, voters elected the city's first African-American mayor, David N. Dinkins (1927- ), who had defeated Koch in the Democratic primary. Dinkins's troubled term was marked by recession, heightened racial tensions, and, in February 1993, the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center, which killed six people and caused approximately $600 million in property damage and other economic losses (see Terrorism). Dinkins lost in November to a Republican, Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor. During Giuliani's tenure, the crime rate dropped and the city enjoyed an economic revival; the mayor remained a controversial figure, however, in part because of what some New Yorkers regarded as his insensitivity to the victims of police violence.

World Trade Center destroyed

The deadliest disaster in the history of New York City began when two hijacked commercial jetliners rammed the twin towers of the World Trade Center on the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001; a third hijacked aircraft crashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth went down (after an apparent struggle between the passengers and hijackers) in rural Pennsylvania (see Hijacking). The North Tower, hit first at 8:48 am, managed to stand for nearly an hour and three-quarters, while most of its occupants were rescued; the South Tower, struck 15 minutes later but more grievously damaged, collapsed less than an hour after the impact, explosion, and intense fire compromised the structure's steel support system. The World Trade Center death toll was about 2800, including the 147 passengers and 10 hijackers on board the two aircraft. Among the dead were hundreds of firefighters, police, and other emergency personnel who had rushed to the scene after the North Tower was hit and were crushed in an avalanche of rubble when the South Tower fell. The catastrophe devastated the entire World Trade Center complex, damaged nearby buildings in New York's financial district, disrupted transportation and communications services, and forced an unprecedented cessation of stock trading for the remainder of the week.

Giuliani won praise, both nationally and internationally, for his strong and reassuring performance during the weeks following the disaster. Under his leadership and with the aid of the state and federal governments, the city immediately undertook the extremely difficult task of clearing the wreckage and restoring access to Lower Manhattan, which lost about one-third of its office space and an estimated 100,000 jobs as a result of the attack. Ineligible to run for a third term as mayor, Giuliani endorsed Michael R. Bloomberg (1942- ), a billionaire financier and media magnate who spent about $69 million of his own money on his campaign. In the general election in early November, Bloomberg, a former Democrat running on the Republican ticket, defeated his Democratic opponent, Public Advocate Mark Green (1945- ).

Still reeling from the consequences of the September calamity, the city suffered a further blow on November 12 when an American Airlines Airbus A300 en route from Kennedy Airport to the Dominican Republic went out of control shortly after takeoff. The resultant crash, in a residential section of Queens, claimed the lives of all 251 passengers and nine crew members on board the aircraft, along with five people on the ground.

The city was host to the 2004 Republican National Convention in August of that year.